General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Reptile reproduction, it turns out, is more flexible than our own. Whiptails, a girls-only species, can lay unfertilized eggs without the need for a male. And Komodo dragons have recently been di...
I am doing some hard sci-fi worldbuilding and really want to get as much correct as I can, but the effects of high sub-light speed travel on the travellers is doing my head in. I've pored literally...
In a distant galaxy, there is a young, yellow-white star. Orbiting this star is a gas giant comprised almost entirely of oxygen-nitrogen, and water. In its core, there is a relatively large nickel-...
My species lives on a world that is filled with very few storms, lush environments, and naturally forming metallic monoliths. The species are like humans, but one thing that sets them apart from hu...
Imagine a species of humanoid beings living on an Earth-like planet somewhere in the universe; they have developed complex spoken and written languages and they can study their own anatomy and the ...
In terms of scientific and engineering challenges, which one is closer to fruition? Specifically I am looking for the feasibility of using one of these systems for space-only travel between the orb...
Mariam Nabatanzi Babirye is a woman in Uganda who has had 44 children in her life due to her bearing many children at one time. This unusual situation is because of a rare genetic abnormality that ...
So I remember reading a long time ago about how a theoretical "wave" could exist, as the laws of physics suddenly changed in one place and then this rippled across the universe, basically at the sp...
(I'm new here, so if I'm doing something wrong please let me know) I have an idea for a world where most fauna (and potentially flora) have floating, disembodied limbs that hover in place. Think R...
Imagine a race of humanoid alien living somewhere in the universe evolves weird sensory organ which can only picks up frequency of light ranging from 800MHz up to 2.5GHz which is in the microwave s...
This is another question that seeks to provide assistance in the design of ''Eosi Humans'' an alternate human species which makes up the population of my fantasy world ''Diggoran'' ( Pronounced Die...
Since the 1800s, the levels of testosterone has been steadily rising in males across the world. The increase in male testosterone has increased strength, speed, height, energy, and aggression. The ...
I am workin on an ecosystem based on life within the rings of a planet. I will create creatures from single celled organisms, to algae/ lichen, plankton/worms and scales of predators leading to lar...
"Imagine that. A planet teeming with life, entwined with one another with mere thought and nothing more. A silent harmony, a quiet world." Context Through some still unknown science, and on this ...
One trope seen in movies is mind control. This trope involves a person or thing taking over another person's body, whilst visual or auditory cues and friends try to help the original person regain ...
The species I have created, are a species of gliding reptiles. They look primarily like horned lizards and measure up to 20 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 5-6 feet tall. however, they posses wings tha...
One thing that nearly every multi cellular organism and complex thinking species is communicate, either it be pheromones, chemicals, chirps and sounds, symbols and shapes, to even complex sentences...
The eclipse needs to be visible from at least one region on the planet every revelation and last about one hour.
Imagine a distant future in which humans' descendants have scattered throughout the stars, settling wherever they can. Some planets and moons are resource-rich paradises, while others are barren w...
One thing that is fairly common amongst nearly every macro-scale living thing on this planet is the brain. The brain controls when creatures breathe, move, talk, etc., but the brains of said living...
JordanTheCynic here again with another question relating to my Eosi Humans. Most of my questions are NSFW by the way so just a fair warning. I made a post in the past which discussed how Eosi h...
I am writing a story that has insects the size of humans, but I am having a little trouble with the biology. When you look up why there are no large insects on Earth, the most popular answer is th...
Landia, a land based civilisation, has recently established diplomatic relations with Aquatica, a civilisation of fish people. The two peoples exchange gifts to each other - including from Landia, ...
If we didn't have the capability to use faster than light travel then how could we stay unified and are any realistic examples in science fiction?
In a world I'm designing, a group of Homo Habilis or even Australopithecus Afarensis migrated into a northern Scotland environment becoming Trolls. These are not D&D trolls, but something else....
I want to know if a planet with an atmosphere identical to that of Earth could be big enough so that from no point in the lower atmosphere it would be possible to appreciate the curvature in relati...
In this universe, Earth had a couple orbital rings during the construction of the colony ships that were sent to Alpha Centauri. Humanity has achieved fusion power and efficient space flight (1g ac...
I have come across a weapon by The Killing Star, which is called the Absorbic Bomb. Apparently, it reverses the formula E = mc^2, of how matter is converted to energy during standard nuclear blast...
Lets say you have a planet called...Galileo. Galileo has a large amount of biodiversity, with bacteria, plants, fungi, and animals. The animals are what I'd like to focus on today. Unlike Earth wit...
Background This is a Terror Bird: Specifically, this is Titanis one of the largest of the carnivorous Phorusrhacidae; it was perhaps 2.5 meters tall and 150 kg. I would like a terror bird that...
My question is: What needs to be changed or improved in the structure of human muscle fibers so that my genetically modified person can lift several tons ( from 2700 to 7000 kilograms), taking into...
I also need to combine two suggestions about changing a person's muscle fibers so that my genetically modified person has both of them. The first sentence refers to the modification of human muscle...
I am considering a mid to large sized creature, the loping quhambo. Maybe eight to ten palms at the whithers and maybe five stone in weight. It is a proboscidean mammal of some sort, though quite ...
Many people are excited with the idea of super-Earths--rocky, habitable exoplanets greater in mass, density and diameter (because I'd prefer to go the whole way than stop at the halfway point) than...
Monotremes are the oddballs of the mammal family, the echidnas and especially the platypus are absolutely absurd creatures with their bizarre anatomical features and mishmash of reptilian and mamma...
Set in the year 3020 CE, every crew on board has a personal issued portal gun to easily get around the interior of the spaceship. The handheld portal gun can instantly teleport the user along with ...
Tomorrow morning, an apocalyptic event wipes humanity off the face of the earth - except for in Antarctica. The nature of the catastrophe is unclear, but it seems that any human will die within a f...
Basically a world that cannot be mapped.
Under what circumstances could an inherently individualist species become intelligent and advanced? Usually, animals require social interaction for intelligence to develope. Or at least that's wha...
My world is essentially a Neptune-sized gas planet that got seeded with life and its surface layer filled with oxygen, therefore gaining a sizeable layer with Earthlike conditions. Within this la...
Vocal mimicry for this question refers to the ability to imitate the sounds of other animals, exemplified in this video of a lyrebird mimicking several species of birds, a chainsaw and even a camer...
My idea is a planet that orbits a red dwarf at a distance in which the apparent magnitude of this seen from the planet is the same as that of the sun seen from Earth. Does this mean that the daylig...
I am designing a fictitious continent, and as part of this I am also designing the prehistoric development of the continent up to the present day. A particular tricky part of this has been that, i...
In my setting, there are basically no biological life forms left, as everyone has either been mind-uploaded or is an artificial intelligence. It is supposed to take place at a very distant point i...
Lets say an alien trickster wants to trick a group of human astronauts into thinking they've been transported to another world far away. But in reality, he wants them to stay on good old Earth, thr...
I am building a science fiction world with technology comparable to the Halo Universe (AKA Warp Drives are a thing). The story is set in a section of the galaxy with various nations controlling mul...
Background A large star makes a relatively close approach to a solar system like our own and the orbits of many of the planets are badly perturbed. A planet similar to Earth is in the wrong place a...
In my story several flying mythical creatures have been brought in a more realistic world. some creatures like Gargoyles can only fly for short distances while others like the heavenpiercer (a type...
In my narrative universe, there will be ships that use a 1g acceleration for artificial gravity. However, when they are not accelerating (whether on a longer journey at a constant velocity or simpl...
This is a science fiction intelligent alien biology question. I'm imagining a race of large (around 2m in height) insect-like species on a distant planet who discovered astronomy VERY late in thei...
